on @SkyNews now. Dr. Cathy Gardner says the Government's big mistake was the discharge guidance issued on 19th March which said that patients must be discharged as fast as possible. She is totally correct and the Government should admit it.
As I said earlier.
And Johnson's latest attempt to blame clinicians for discharging people to care homes without testing, when Government guidance specifically told them negative tests were not required, is utterly despicable.
There is no doubt the Government made catastrophic mistakes in the management of this pandemic. I think this is understandable in the circumstances. But trying to pretend they didn't make mistakes is not. They should hold their hands up and apologise to those they have wronged.
BUT....I do not think the NHS should be let off the hook, either. Clinicians could have decided to test patients for covid before discharging them. There was nothing in the guidance that said they should not test, only that tests were "not required".
In choosing to discharge patients without tests, clinicians knowingly put care homes and communities at risk. They need to be held to account for this.
There is also evidence that NHS discharge teams put care homes under considerable pressure to accept patients even after the care homes had locked down to protect their residents. The discharge teams need to be held to account for this.
